Laptop while on the road

[CS_Speed]

Every laptop I have ever tried to routinely carry with me in a bag on a motorcycle has soon died, all in different ways.

So, maybe try looking into refurb Panasonic Toughbook on Amazon?

 

[Dahveed]

Every laptop I have ever tried to routinely carry with me in a bag on a motorcycle has soon died, all in different ways.

So, maybe try looking into refurb Panasonic Toughbook on Amazon?

perhaps an extended warranty isn't a bad idea either. But still pack it well.

 

[NX2000]

I've carried some type of laptop for years on a lot of bikes. I carried a 286 monster in a GL1200. The saddlebag wouldn't close and I used a little bungee to keep the lid down. Never had any problems, like someone said soft padding and make sure it's secure.

 

[Jeff S]

If you're mostly doing RDP, then you don't need real horsepower. Like others have said, I'd buy an el cheapo 12" notebook and a hard pelican case for it.
I carried an 8" netbook on a 2-week ride a few years ago. Banged around on plenty of dirt roads and had no issues at all.

 

[StromXTc]

Michael, did you ever buy anything for your NMBDR... "on the road with Kubota Mike"

 

[kubotamiketx]

After listening to everyone I went ahead and took my Surface Book with me. I found a nice padded zipper case for it, put it in the top dry bag wrapped with some spare clothes I took with me. It survived just fine, has no ill effects even after some punishing miles. I guess with everything being solid state now, it should be fine.

 

[stephensatt]

T-Mobile had a deal a couple of months ago that if you paid for another line for a "device", which costs me $15 per month unlimited, you get a Samsung Tablet for Free. I got the Galaxy TAB A 8inch 4G. It has been totally worth it! Use a bluetooth keyboard with it and its like a mini-surface, and it can pretty much do anything a PC laptop can do, except its Android, so you cannot run Windows APPs, however, Office 365 works through Chrome so I can load up all my Office docs and edit them, and check Outlook email for work. Its small and the durability is way better than a laptop, also the battery life is about 1 week under minimal use, 3 days under heavy use. I pay an extra $15 on top of that to use it has a 4G hotspot, so $30 a month, tablet is about $300 new so that was FREE. We used it for 3 days at the Redneck Ramble to run our ROKU TV from the hotspot in the RV. I got 60MB in speed, but we were in downtown Paris Tx close to a tower. I also have Google Voice on it, so it has a phone number and I can make phone calls on it. You can also have Google forward all your SMS messages from your phone to it, so it syncs the txt messaging across my phone and the tablet so if the phone dies, the tablet works the same as the phone. Think of it as a big second phone, a "PHABLET" as they call it.

Also I bought the "WeBoost Drive Sleek" portable cell phone amplifier from Amazon. You can carry that on your bike too. It has a magnetic antenna and a cradle you set your phone or tablet in, and it will boost a 1bar signal to 4-5 bars. Plugs into your cigarette lighter. I bought that because after the ride in the Hill Country in Junction Tx last year, there were many areas we didn't have cell service and it fixed that for me many times.